


all's not fair

by weisjenga



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff, M/M, a love polygon of indeterminate sides, but it shouldn't be too bad, but it's fictional world because i didn't want to research, dongmin is a prince, dynasty au, it's all here, language as well, love and jealousy and betrayal and revenge and conspiracy, minhyuk is done with everyone, mj is a prince, probably mild descriptions of violence, sanha is also a prince, when is he ever not though, woosatan is here too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-07-16 09:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16083077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weisjenga/pseuds/weisjenga
Summary: between a dynasty in the midst of a war, civil unrest threatening to break out, and a palace bursting with secrets, three princes fight for the throne. myungjun wants a better future for the empire and the people. dongmin is waiting for the day he can live his own life without a calculation behind every movement. sanha has spent his life looking for answers, and will stop at nothing to find them. jinwoo knows enough to destroy his best friend, bin lives with a sword in his hand, and minhyuk? he just wishes everyone would stop trying to kill each other.





	1. between a tactician and a general

**Author's Note:**

> LISTEN I'VE HAD THIS FLOATING AROUND IN MY HEAD FOR S O LONG omg. so i'll be updating this alongside unbridled, hopefully everyone is okay with that! if not then...i'm doing it anyway :')
> 
> the pov in this will be somewhat omniscient because otherwise i'd have to dedicate chapters with certain povs to understand the story but i don't think I /quite/ have enough content for that so we're going with this! it will be mostly focused on dongmin i think, unless i get carried away
> 
> starting quote: eyes open - taylor swift

_the tricky thing is_

_yesterday we were just children_

_Ten years ago._

            “Hah! Got you,” Dongmin shouted, wooden sword pointed at Jinwoo, the older boy collapsed onto the ground, breathless and laughing.

            “I let you win,” Jinwoo retorted and reached out a hand so that Dongmin could help him up. As soon as Dongmin leaned down, Jinwoo pulled on his arm, and he ended up sprawled next to Jinwoo.

            Dongmin rolled his eyes and laughed, still gasping for breath, refusing to believe that Jinwoo would choose to let him win, even if he was the prince. Slowly, their giddiness faded into a comfortable silence. Under the soft shade of a tree, the air was kinder than the suffocating summer haze, and Dongmin exhaled, cheerful.

            With a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth, Jinwoo watched him, all warm contentment atop cool blades of grass. Jinwoo had arrived at the palace four years ago; having shown great promise in his studies, he had been taken in to train to become a tactician for the palace.

            “I hope that His Majesty will assign you to me, so I can keep winning,” Dongmin poked at Jinwoo with a sharp elbow. “But I think he will. You spend all your time with me anyway, since you have no other friends,” he continued playfully.

            “I _do,_ ” insisted Jinwoo. “Like…Bin! Bin is my friend.”

            Dongmin scrunched his nose. “Really? You’re always so grumpy around him.”

            “Am not! Look, here he comes,” Jinwoo rolled over onto his side and sat up.

            Dongmin clambered to his feet, waving at the approaching figure. “Binnie,” he called out. The other boy, though a year younger than the prince, was as tall as he was, a fact that he sometimes enjoyed bothering Jinwoo about.

            “Your Highness,” Bin bowed awkwardly, eliciting a giggle from Dongmin and a stare from Jinwoo. “They – um, Wooseok asked me to come get Your Highness and Jinwoo as well. He says it’s time for lessons.”

            Brought into the palace just weeks prior, Bin had been found by Wooseok, the resident swords master. On the way back from a trip, Wooseok leaped out of the _moving_ carriage when he saw Bin on the streets, warding off two men with less-than-savoury intentions, using only a sword past its last breath of life. When it was ascertained that Bin didn’t exactly have anywhere to stay, Wooseok promptly put Bin into the carriage, and that was that. Wooseok took Bin as his personal student, convinced that he would grow up to be the strongest with a sword he’d ever see.

            “Thank you, Binnie,” Dongmin beamed at the younger boy and grabbed Jinwoo by the wrist, pulling him along.

            “Why don’t you have a special name for me?” Jinwoo mumbled, not quite audible, not quite low enough.

            “Hmm, what is it, Jinwoo?” Dongmin took Bin’s arm in his other hand, and Jinwoo looked away.

            “Nothing,” he sighed.

            The whole way back to the palace, Dongmin talked to the two by his side. “One day, I’ll be the emperor. And you’ll both be there, won’t you?”

 

_Present day._

            “Jinwoo. How does it look?” Dongmin slid the door open and strode in, sleeves of his robes floating in behind him.

            “Your Highness,” greeted Jinwoo as he rose from his seat on the floor, where he had been frowning over a large map, spread over a desk. “Did the meeting go well?”

            “No,” Dongmin stopped just short of snapping. He reached up to pull the pin out of his hairpiece, setting the jade and gold ornament on the nearest shelf he could find. “Jinwoo, do you have a – thank you, this will do,” before Dongmin could finish his sentence, Jinwoo was placing something into his hands. He swept half his hair up into the wide ring, a simpler piece of silver, and angrily shoved the pin through, securing it in place.

            “Take care not to let His Majesty see Your Highness in that,” Jinwoo advised, teasing, though his words held nothing but truth.

            “Stop with the formalities, it’s just us now,” the prince rolled his eyes, adjusted the ornament already tipping to one side of his head. “I’ll change it back before I set foot out of this room, trust me. I just needed something less…”

            “Less adorned with pearls?” Jinwoo offered.

            “Precisely.”

            Jinwoo turned back to the map, gesturing for Dongmin to sit beside him. “We’ve been able to push on the northern border. If we continue at this pace, we’ll be catching the end of this mountain range here in two weeks’ time, which will be…”

            Dongmin nodded, pressed two fingers to his forehead to try and soothe an oncoming headache. He stood and paced around the room as Jinwoo explained the situation. The afternoon sun cut through the open door, catching, glimmering on his hairpiece still set on one of Jinwoo’s many bookshelves. Three pearls along the top, an indication of his current status and favour.

            Three years ago, war broke out. The border disputes and desire for resources and land slowed to a stalemate last winter. In an attempt to push towards a resolution, the emperor brought in his three sons. Each of the princes was left in charge of one of the borders – Dongmin was given the northwest, Myungjun, the eldest, took care of the eastern side, and Sanha, barely old enough at eighteen, was to deal with the southern edge. Not only was this a way for the aging emperor to take a step back from his duties, it also served as a test of sorts. Whoever had the most success in the war would be appointed as the next emperor.

            Jinwoo often liked to gripe about the terrain they had been given to work with. The entirety of the geography to the north just across the border was mountainous, with intermittent and occasionally unexpected patches of forest. Dongmin did his best to refrain from commenting on the matter, but hardly a day went by where he didn’t wonder why he, and not Myungjun, had been given what appeared to be the most difficult side. On occasion, he liked to bother Myungjun about it, to which the elder would point out that there wasn’t really much to work with in the desert that lay to the east of the empire. Then, both of them would grumble about Sanha’s southern border because the entire southwest portion was adjacent to a lake anyway. This usually resulted in Sanha huffing and exiting the room none so elegantly. The heavy silence that followed came as a reminder that underneath the jokes, it was far from a game.

            “…Dongmin. _Dongmin._ ” Jinwoo’s voice floated back into his thoughts.

            “Hm, yes, that sounds fine,” Dongmin replied, squeezing his eyes shut, letting out a sigh.

            “I see. Very well, then.” Jinwoo’s smirk informed Dongmin that he’d definitely not been listening to whatever the other had been suggesting for quite some time now, and the topics had left the realm of anything serious. “Perhaps Your Highness would like to come back to discuss this later in the day?” He suggested, a hint of teasing in the words.

            Another sigh. “Meet me after dinner,” said Dongmin, though he knew there wasn’t much point. Jinwoo was perfectly capable of making the best choice by himself, but the tactician knew that Dongmin liked to stay informed. “Thank you, Jinwoo.”

            With that, Dongmin retrieved his hairpiece from the shelf and did his best to restore his hair to its original state from earlier in the day. He didn’t bother trying to put on even a neutral expression as he glided along the twisting hallways and into his father’s room, the doors a little grander, a little more intricate than the rest.

            “Dongmin,” the emperor did not turn from his seat, brush poised over bound slats of wood.

            “I am here, Your Majesty,” although his father couldn’t see him, Dongmin knelt to the floor in a sweep of robes. He didn’t need to see the statement the emperor was drafting to know what it was: yet another request in finding a suitable girl for him to be betrothed to.

            “I assume you know why I called you here,” the words carried no question, nor any room for discussion.

            “I do,” Dongmin straightened.

            Suddenly, the emperor set down his brush and sighed, brought a hand up to his forehead, mirroring the actions Dongmin had taken not so long ago. “Would it really bother you so much to make even a _little_ more effort?”

            “I cannot help it if I wasn’t interested in her.”

            “You say that after every meeting.”

            “It’s true every meeting.”

            In a softer tone, the emperor replied, “Dongmin, it’s been three years since –”

            _“I am aware,”_ Dongmin felt his voice pulled tight, his chest tighter. He knew he shouldn’t have cut his father off midsentence, but he didn’t want to – couldn’t – listen to the rest of the sentence.

            “We _will_ discuss this further. You may go.” Not another word, and the emperor returned to his script, waving for his official seals to be brought over.

            “I’ll take my leave, Your Majesty,” Dongmin bowed stiffly and backed out of the room. There was no use arguing with his father when he was like this.

            Dongmin walked through the courtyards, spring blossoms leaving loose petals to dance in the breeze, ivory specks on the ground beneath dappled shadows. He passed his mother’s room and paused in the doorway. The woman inside came to him, lifting a gentle hand to caress his cheek and offered an understanding smile.

            Today, he went straight to his room and dismissed the servants. There was someone else there, facing away from the door, turning as Dongmin entered.

            “Commander Moon,” Dongmin breathed for the first time that day, and the other man’s sharp features pulled up into a light smile.

            “Oh, don’t you do that with me here,” he said, taking a few steps closer as Dongmin slid the door closed.

            “Binnie,” Dongmin greeted again, feeling an easy grin come over his own features, frustration dissolving.

            Bin’s smile pulled wider, mischievous. “I’ve been waiting for you, Your Highness.”


	2. the first crown prince and a rebel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY it's been,,, too long i'm so sorry I've been having trouble even writing three sentences lately

            A pink wash of morning light dusted the rooftops of the town as Myungjun wandered through the streets. In the late morning, merchants clamoured from their wooden stalls, enticing passerby to trade coppers for colourfully woven textiles or a simple blade. Myungjun adjusted the plain black silk scarf concealing his face, his attire otherwise inconspicuous as always when he made these trips. He knew the chances of him being recognized here were low, as it was rare that he made public appearances outside of the palace. Yet still, paranoia lingered, though it was a fraction of what it had been when he’d first began making these trips.

            Myungjun found that with each passing year came a heavier weight to carry that he, the first crown prince, may very well one day end up the emperor, and Myungjun didn’t understand how he was expected to do a passable job at all if he wasn’t even aware of what was happening in the empire. Of course, he knew every last detail of the supposedly glorious history, and how to run trades to keep a favourable economy. But these were not the things that Myungjun believed would make him any good at being an emperor. It would be his mandated duty to protect the people, and that meant _all_ of them, and so he had concluded that he wouldn’t be able to do so unless he knew every whisper and corner of the land.

            It had taken two hours to ride out to the far eastern side of the empire. He’d left at dawn, slipping out of the palace and keeping to the back roads until he was sure he was safely out of the city. Now, Myungjun was reminded that he hadn’t stopped for breakfast, and his stomach rumbled in disappointment. Perhaps he would stop at one of the many stalls and buy himself a bowl of noodles. But for now, he had to wait. Across the street, a figure stepped out of the shadows of a narrow alley and caught the prince’s eye.

            Rebels were all over the east, something Myungjun had discovered throughout his trips. Initially he had started coming out to help oversee the trading across the desert which had been affected by the war. Then, he heard rumours of a rebellion, something the empire certainly did not need in the middle of a war. And so here he was, a respected member of the royal family, working with the rebels. They wanted change. So did he.

            Slowly, Myungjun made his way to an agreed meeting spot. This time it was an old tavern, quiet enough at this hour, tucked away on the edge of town. Myungjun walked in and tried not to reel at the sight of men still passed out at tables, the smell of alcohol heavy in the air. He nestled into the least sticky-looking corner he could find and waited.

            Soon enough a man pulled out the chair across from Myungjun and sat down. This meeting was the one Myungjun had been working up to, ever since he had learned of the presence of the rebellion. This was the leader who wanted to bring down the emperor. Myungjun eyed the man opposite himself, though his hood was up, he could make out the other’s features clearly. What struck him by surprise was how young he looked, hardly twenty, yet Myungjun recognized the look in his eyes. _A little too tired of the world._

            They began, negotiation after negotiation, no mind paid to the sun climbing in the sky and lowering again. Dishes stacked up on their table, other patrons came and went with the day. And finally, at the fall of night, the two stood up and left, the leader with an agreement that Myungjun would investigate the list of names given, and he with a promise that the trade routes would be protected from the war.

            Myungjun crept through the shadows now settled on the walls of the town, back to where he had left his horse. He was nearly there when he was grabbed from behind and thrown against a wall. Instinctively, he reached for the knife hidden under his cloak and held it up, blocking his face. His attacker stumbled and Myungjun could tell the man was flushed with alcohol as he leaned in, grabbing at the prince’s collar.

            _“Who do you think you are, coming here? Useless son of a useless emperor,”_ the man drawled, disgustingly close, before loosening his grip and walking away. Myungjun huffed and peeled himself off the bricks, straightened out his clothing, tucked his knife away. He knew that there was growing discontent with the way things were. The emperor’s ever-increasing desire for power, not caring if he was loved, caring even less if he was feared. This wasn’t how it should have been. Paper still clutched in his hand, Myungjun continued on, more uncomfortable with the fact that he had been recognized than anything else. He would have to be more careful. If news of this reached the palace…

…

            Myungjun groaned, practically dragging himself along the boardwalks in the inner palace. He had tried to come in without being seen, having to shush the guards when they tried to greet him. It was a rare occurrence that his outings took him all day and he was exhausted, ready to collapse firstly into a bath and then into his bed.

            He passed Sanha’s room first, the door still open, the youngest prince kneeled at his desk, holding a necklace up to a lantern. Myungjun sighed. At the start of the war, Sanha’s mother, one of the emperor’s concubines, suddenly killed herself. Since then, Myungjun often found Sanha in nights like this, looking at his mother’s jewelry. And always it would suddenly remind Myungjun how young Sanha was. Six years younger than himself and too much responsibility, never a word of complaint.

            Next, he passed by Dongmin’s room and from inside he heard hushed voices and gentle laughter. He thought that he really should have a word with Dongmin that he was not being as discreet as he perceived himself to be. Rolling his eyes, Myungjun hardly made it two more steps before he ran into Jinwoo. Immediately his mood brightened and he smiled at the tactician.

            “Your Highness,” Jinwoo bowed. “May I ask where you’ve been?”

            “I was out for a…walk,” Myungjun blurted out. “What are you doing here?” He did his best to redirect Jinwoo’s attention, putting on as princely a tone he could muster in his current state.

            “I’m here to deliver some papers,” replied Jinwoo as he gestured towards Dongmin’s room. He took a small step closer.

            _“Wait!”_ Myungjun flailed an arm out, never mind being _princely_ anymore, stopping Jinwoo in his tracks. “You can’t go in.”

            “But His Highness asked me to bring these,” the other said, clearly conflicted. As he came closer Jinwoo frowned and noted suspiciously, “something smells like alcohol.”

            “That’s, um, that would be me, Jinwoo.”

            “I thought you went for a walk, Your Highness?”

            “I…I did! That’s right,” Myungjun was flustered, but anything to keep Jinwoo from opening the door to Dongmin’s room. He saw the way the tactician looked at Dongmin. “I went for a walk to the bar in the city!”

            “But Your Highness, the palace has plenty of alcohol. You don’t look drunk,” Jinwoo commented. “I should really deliver these papers…”

            Jinwoo didn’t deserve this. Myungjun had to get him away from the room, no matter what. “I definitely am,” he slurred his words slightly and slung his arm around Jinwoo. He ignored the fluttering in his chest, attributed it to his fake drunkenness. “And, Jinwoo, I have a _great_ story to tell you – help me to my room, I can _hardly_ walk – you won’t believe what happened,” he said, starting to make up a story as he pulled the other down the boardwalk.

            And while the moon rose above the palace, quietly among the blossoming stars, Myungjun made up countless stories, hiding Jinwoo from the truth he surely already knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're still here thank you i promise I'm not abandoning this

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on [tumblr](https://eunwoohearts.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/weisjenga)!


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